Devil Advocate's bloody mary

The bloody mary from Devil's Advocate

Every day a tsunami of digital news attempts to drown me into its dark flickers, and like everybody, I combat it by scheduling a lot of mental health–preserving brunches. A good bloody mary and pancakes with friends—what can’t that fix?

One fateful day, I managed to arrive early to brunch, to the shock of myself and all who know me. I dipped into my phone to read the morning’s news. Women in their 30s now outnumber women in their 20s when it comes to having babies for the first time in U.S. history, the CDC announced. Further, women who delayed having their first child to age 35 made, on average, $50,000 more annually than women who had their first child at 20. In 1971, the mean age of first birth was only 21; now it’s edging toward 30.

I looked around the packed brunch, one in a sea of a city rocking with packed brunches: Well yes, that explains everything, I thought. It’s obvious to even a casual observer that brunch has gone this last decade from a rare occasion to a pillar of Twin Cities life. All those childless, income-earning ladies must have kicked it off—bottomless mimosas, anyone? (By the way, the current mimosa hotspots include Nightingale, Libertine, Betty Danger’s, Copper Hen, Café Maude, and Coup d’Etat in Minneapolis, along with PUBLIC Kitchen and Bonfire in St. Paul.) And then these brunching ladies started families, and the babies were handed croissants to teethe on, taking us to today, with brunch now an indoor sport rivaling hockey for local obsession.

Where to go next on your rounds? Consider these three fresh establishments.

Minneapolis cynics will be forgiven for eyeing the latest bird-named version of 1612 Harmon Place in Loring Park with suspicion, for in the last five years this pretty and ever-changing spot has been the Third Bird, Café Maude, Nick and Eddie, and Bearcat Bar. Why fall in love with a bird that may soon wing away? Because there’s much to love and new reason for confidence. Love it because chef Kevin Kathman is bringing ultra-healthy, spa-like cooking to brunch—think complicated juices with ingredients like fresh burdock, turmeric, mint, and ginger or “superseed” pesto (sunflower, pepita, walnuts, and flax.) At the same time, he’s also making good cheeseburgers and light-as-a-feather mini-donuts with hot Nutella sauce, so the spot is not completely crunchy.

My favorite brunch options were distinctly hippie-sounding. One was a brown rice bowl, a vegetarian stunner that reminded me of bibimbap that spent a semester in Berkeley, with a pretty cilantro pesto mixed into the rice with bonito, nori, fancy-kitchen poached eggs, and a vibrant house kimchi. My other favorite dish was a gluten-free pancake made with sprouted quinoa, which I swear on a stack of Bibles reminded me of a buttermilk pancake like grandma made. It was airy, delicate, and substantial—nothing like what it sounds like, which is something made by people in old Birkenstocks in an intentional community where you are yelled at for wasting dishwater. Not only is this sprouted-quinoa pancake light, but the blueberry sauce on it was smartly made by combining an intense blueberry syrup with handfuls of fresh berries so you get the whole rainbow of possible blueberry textures and flavors. The cashew cream that gilds this healthy lily adds a nutty bit of protein and silky shot of glitz.

But are there Minnesotans longing to eat in the “Interesting Wellness” style of Los Angeles’ Sqirl or New York City’s Dimes? We will soon find out. Till then, it’s worth checking out The Bird if just to get your head around the rest of 2017. Chef Kathman is now reunited with owner Kim Bartmann—he opened Pat’s Tap and Bread and Pickle for her years ago—and the two say they plan to open several new restaurants together this year, including Trapeze (a 20-seat champagne bar attached to Barbette) and other undisclosed projects. Kathman, a Cold Spring native, says The Bird is the new heart of everything they’ll be doing in the eight—and soon 11?—Twin Cities Bartmann restaurants. They’ll test recipes at night when the kitchen is closed, and he’ll be there in the morning making his special green juice, a light concoction made with mint. “This is what I enjoy eating, and there’s not a lot of places to get it around here,” Kathman told me. “My slogan has been: Let’s make itspecial; let’s make it healthy.”

That seems a better thing to put in people’s minds than the more typical association of early birds and worms—the early bird sprouts the quinoa?

Attention bloody mary maximalists: a call to arms! Or at least straws. The relocation of cheeky rapscallion Devil’s Advocate from the Handicraft Guild Building in downtown Minneapolis—soon to be wrapped in an apartment tower, as was done for the Ivy a few blocks over—to the Irish bar Dan Kelly’s is nearly complete. It’s also a new landmark in bloody mary insanity. Picture, if you will, an ice bucket filled to the brim with a bloody mary, bursting with skewered sliders, chicken wings, fried cheese curds, fried stuffed pepperoncini, sausages, pickles, and a dozen other things you won’t be able to count if you finish such a big bloody mary. As Thanksgiving turkeys are to quail, this monster is to ordinary brunch. How does it not tip over? The answer is only for folks who pay $40 for the drink that’s meant to serve four. I insist you must consume it when you’re pregaming a weekend Twins game and want the jaws of your friends in other states to hit the floor because Marie Antoinette and Caligula have nothing on you when it comes to sheer opulent decadence. The other bloody marys here are good, too (the green chili vodka one has nice tang), and beer hunters are advised that there are some rarities on tap, but mainly it’s nice that Devil’s Advocate decided to wave a wand and turn a good bloody mary into something to tell the grandkids about. “Why when I was your age, we drank bloody marys bigger than dogs!”

The chicken and waffles plate is solid and big enough to feed two for $10. The breakfast burger, made with a bun turned in to French toast, is also worth checking out—it’s not overly drenched in egg, but just wacky enough to be fun. I hope this new incarnation of Devil’s Advocate grabs ingredients from its sister restaurant, the northern barbecue spot Erik the Red, because the only thing that would make this bloody mary parade-float situation better would be smoked brisket hash.

When beer-star Happy Gnome opened Augustine’s, its spinoff down the block, it was a bit of a head-scratcher: What exactly is a beer-and-bakery concept? With Scott Brink, formerly of W.A. Frost, in the kitchen, the picture became clear, and now the big and airy (it was formerly a laundromat) but also smart and warm-feeling spot (such sweet vintage touches) has come into focus.

It’s a no-nonsense, good-food place, with a bakery counter showcasing serious croissants and the best ricotta-cream-cheese kolache in town. The table-service brunch offers both sloppy-great hangover cures like a spicy chorizo hash and poached eggs, as well as buoyant pancakes topped with a sauce chockablock with fresh berries but made more intense with red wine.

The do-it-yourself bloody mary bar is a joy, stocked with more than a dozen little classy treats to tuck into your drink, from pickled asparagus to kalamata olives, and the $6 kids’ brunch options put the friendly in family-friendly. On one visit I noticed a set of grandparents had snagged a prime corner table, and as their infant grandchild snoozed in a prestige stroller, they spread out The New York Times and filled the table with lattés and breakfast tacos. It’s often been noted that all happy families are happy in the same ways, but these days, around the northernmost big cities on the Mississippi River, it seems we’re happy in a very specific way: processing the days together over brunch.

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Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl was born in New York City little aware of her destiny—to eat out a lot in Minnesota. Dara is the other half of our star food and dining team, working side by side with Stephanie March.